18 April 2011

Play With Your Food

Amy Sedaris beats me to everything.Once, I had this great idea to cover myself with cake frosting and then roll around in sprinkles, but I procrastinated for too long and she did exactly that and then put a photo of it on the inside of her dust cover jacket thingee.Disgruntled, I then decided to go savory and to roast hot dogs on a rake so I could cook 12 hot dogs at a time, but I didn’t own a rake, so I didn’t do it, and then she did. Curses, foiled again!I was depressed for a few months about it, but then got over it when I was inspired to put googly eyes on my food and take pictures of it. Wondering if this could be a viable niche for my path to stardom, I went through Fancy Toast posts from previous years and photoshopped googly eyes on old photos, because sure, I have that kind of time.

I was so thrilled with my idea that I began the process of converting Fancy Toast into a blog solely devoted to putting photos of googly eyes on food. I mean, who does that?

No really, who does that? I was curious. So I looked it up. And guess who does that. You-know-who. In 2004 she had hosted a Flickr contest in which she invited people from all over the world to put googly eyes on their food and submit pictures.

Hate her!Why didn’t she invite me? When I think about how many kindred spirits I missed out on connecting with because I was too unaware in 2004 to be creating real art, I just get sick about it.So I wrote a hate letter to Amy Sedaris, but before I sent it, I asked my husband to check it for typos, seeing as Amy Sedaris and I share a mutual hatred for typos. I just made that up. After he read it, he didn’t tell me NOT to send the letter, because that’s the kind of husband he is, but he did tell me that it doesn’t matter if someone else has already done the googly-eye-on-food-thing, because it’s still funny.

What a sweetheart he is. I started thinking about how much I love that man, but then after 3 seconds I had had enough of that and moved on to (or reverted back to) thinking about how funny the googly-eye-on-food-thing is, even if it’s been done before. Let’s face it. The funniness factor of some things never ever wears out. Like mustaches, and also, knock-knock jokes.(Knock Knock.--Who’s there?I eat map.)

Luckily, the human being that I happened to create a few years ago ALSO thinks googly eyes are hilarious when you put them on inanimate objects, so instead of this activity being a ridiculous hobby with which a grown woman is amusing herself, instead of contributing to the good of humankind, it has evolved into a joyous ritual that I can share with my child, one that will provide her with a childhood filled with memories of laughter and delight. As these mirthful experiences shape her personality, and as she reaches adulthood and is able to contribute to the good of humankind with her humorous graces developed from our mutual googly eye silliness, I will live vicariously through her goodwill as I continue to stick googly eyes on food and other objects, laugh uncontrollably, and text the pictures to my husband, who will have blocked my texts years before but will never tell me because he will know how much joy it gives me to text him pictures of googly eyes on things. Like this one of Shel Silverstein. It almost makes him look a little less creepy, right?

But don’t worry. If your offspring doesn’t think googly eyes are funny, that’s cool. You can still stick googly eyes on your kid when he’s not looking and take pictures of him and post them on the internet for everyone to laugh at. Or not.

(My husband wouldn’t let me post the one where I also drew a nose and a mouth.That’s the kind of husband and father he is.If you really want to see it you just let me know.)

But do you know what the best part of all this is? Amy Sedaris can’t beat me to sticking googly eyes on her kids, because she doesn’t have any kids, because she’s too busy stealing my great ideas.

But if Amy Sedaris wanted to come over to my house and put googly eyes on my food or my kids, I would let her, because I love her.

Sour Cream Banana Cake(I realized I haven’t said anything in my post about this cake. Um. Make it, it’s real good. Or make your own recipe for banana cake, which you’ll probably do anyway, and stick googly eyes on it to make people laugh. Or to make just yourself laugh.)(Also I realized I don’t know who created this recipe. I got it from my friend Melissa who got it from someone. But you should still make it. Like I said, it’s real good.)

Ingredients:2 cups flour1tsp. baking powder1tsp. baking soda1/2 tsp. salt1/2 tsp. cinnamon (original recipe says 1/4 tsp. but what’s the point of that)pinch of freshly grated nutmeg (this is not in the original recipe so you can leave it out)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.Sift or stir the dry ingredients in a bowl.Blend butter and sugar in a food processor or stand mixer.Add eggs, banana, sour cream and vanilla, and mix.Add the dry ingredients.Pour into a greased bundt cake pan.Bake for 40 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean ( my cake took at least 50 minutes but my bananas were frozen then thawed and therefore very liquidy).

Sprinkle with powdered sugar, or a mixture of sugar and butter.Decorate with googly eyes, or not.

I laughed all the way through your post! I'm glad the little people in your life roll with it (till they know better at least - or maybe they'll keep up the good silly work of you and your husband!). I might need to see the pic with the nose & mouth. You know how to find me.

Sharon, they have them at Target, too. First floor, with all the kids' art supplies. I'll send some along with Alice on Thursday. Now you REALLY won't have to babysit the older ones, you can just let the googly eyes do all the work.

Oh I wish my kid didn't have so much hair. I want to glue googly eyes on her soft little head and color on it with washable, non-toxic markers too! Meh. Maybe I'll do it anyway. She'll look like Chewbaca.